Nigina N

Nigina

Uzbekistan, SUSI 2016

With the help of the charity organization "You are not alone", Nigina and her friends from university organized a motivational seminar for teenagers living in orphanages of Tashkent city. Nigina and her fellow volunteers spent the day working with ten boys and girls aged 13-16. Through guided discussion with a staff Psychologist, the youth also discussed the challenges they had in socializing with their classmates in school, who come from typical family backgrounds. The Psychologist led the group through positive affirmations and exercises the teens could use to increase their self-confidence. Nigina observed that the youth were excited to try the new methods.

Since Nigina and her friends came from an "English-speaking university", the heads of the organization kindly asked them to conduct an introductory English lesson. Nigina writes, “They were thrilled to learn the language, and what is more they had a huge progress in English after only one session.”

While she acknowledges that the scale of her session was small, Nigina was happy that it turned out even better than she had hoped. She was happy to put smiles on the youths’ faces and to have a small part in boosting their self-confidence. At the time of reporting, Nigina planned to do a follow up visit with the group in the near future.

This picture of Nigina was taken during the SUSI program in the USA. We have chosen not to publish pictures of her project to protect the participants’ privacy.